Well, I got no meaningful help at all from Western Digital. Basically sent me a response that made completely clear the person who replied had not read my submission.
I guess what I want to know is, if this is a case of bad heads can those be replaced and can I avoid doing a very expensive data recovery?
I also want to say (regardless of what the cause and solution are) the idea that WD can slop out a drive this expensive that dies after sitting comfortably on a desk after only a year, and then basically send you a nonsense Support reply, is just terrible. At least shape the reply resemble the issue I’m having.
